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NUKEWARS
Arms experts warn of 'Faustian bargain' with Iran
by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) April 22, 2015


UN raises alarm over stalled nuclear disarmament
United Nations, United States (AFP) April 22, 2015 - The failure of the world's nuclear powers to make headway on disarmament is threatening to unravel a landmark treaty coming up for review next week, the UN's disarmament chief warned Wednesday.

The 190 countries that have signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) are opening a month-long conference on Monday at the United Nations to take stock amid much gloom over the lack of progress.

"We have a stalling in the path to a nuclear-free world," said Angela Kane, the UN high representative for disarmament affairs.

"The nuclear-weapons states are not living up to their side of the bargain," Kane told a meeting organized by the International Peace Institute.

Reached in 1968, the NPT has been billed as a grand bargain between the five nuclear powers -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - and non-nuclear states which agreed to give up atomic weapon ambitions in exchange for disarmament pledges.

But 45 years after the NPT entered into force, non-nuclear states are feeling increasingly frustrated about the outcome.

"Right now, the non-nuclear states need to be given the sense that they are taken seriously," said Kane.

Delegates to the NPT conference are working on a document laying out priorities on the disarmament agenda for the next five years, but some diplomats have not ruled out that disagreements could lead to a collapse of the conference.

Kane warned that the next five years will be crucial to ensure that the NPT "retains credibility."

She suggested that there be a roadmap with targets that are "not far off in Never-Never-Land" to reassure non-nuclear states that they have signed on to a treaty that is "worthwhile."

Frustration over the slow pace of disarmament has focussed on the United States and Russia which have made little effort on cutting their nuclear arsenals since 2011.

A proposed nuclear weapons-free zone for the Middle East has failed to materialize despite a plan agreed at the last NPT conference to begin talks on the proposal in 2012.

On a brighter note, Kane welcomed the framework nuclear deal reached for Iran and said it could "give pause" to the nuclear threshold states that have yet to join the NPT: Israel, Pakistan and India.

Arms experts Wednesday voiced concern about an emerging nuclear accord with Iran, with one labelling it a "Faustian deal" amid calls for America to push for a tough inspections regime.

Addressing US lawmakers, Stephen Rademaker, a former advisor on arms control to president George W. Bush, said the deal under negotiation would be "a radical departure in US non-proliferation policy."

"At a fundamental level what the deal ... signifies is acceptance by the international community of Iran as a nuclear weapons threshold state," he told the House foreign affairs committee, only days after lawmakers reached a deal with the Obama administration to have a say on the final accord.

Iran and global powers on Wednesday resumed difficult talks in Vienna to finalize the deal by June 30 aimed at putting a nuclear weapon out of Tehran's reach by dramatically scaling back, but not dismantling, its atomic program.

If a ground-breaking deal is reached, the US administration says it will make the region and the world safer, ensuring that the Islamic Republic would need a year to acquire enough fissile material to make a nuclear bomb.

That would significantly increase from the estimated three-to-four months "breakout time" at present.

President Barack Obama also said no other country has presented an alternative, other than to allow Iran's nuclear ambitions to continue unchecked.

But using an American football metaphor, Rademaker warned that by the end of the 10-15 year length of the accord, "the football is going to be on the one-inch line. They're that close to having a nuclear weapon."

"Countries that are on the one-inch line... for all practical purposes in their international relations they have to be treated as if they do have a nuclear weapon."

David Albright, who was a former inspector for Iraq's nuclear program, told the committee it remained an "open question" whether Iran would have an nuclear weapon at the end of the deal.

- Devil in the details -

"Many of the key verification provisions remain unresolved," he said, referring to the parameters of the deal reached after months of talks and a marathon eight-day session in Lausanne on April 2. "The details matter," he insisted.

"The Iranians have taken the position of being extremely defiant, and the Americans have taken the position of problem solving. I think that's put us at a disadvantage and it doesn't bode well for finding solutions."

According to a US fact sheet, Iran has agreed to cut the number of its centrifuges, used for enriching uranium, by two thirds from 19,000 to about 6,000, and will put excess nuclear equipment into storage monitored by the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA.

It has also agreed to not build any new facilities for enriching uranium for 15 years, cut back its stockpile of enriched uranium and mothball some of its plants. The aim is to ensure that it will take Iran a year to accumulate enough fissile material to build a bomb.

But Rademaker said the emerging deal was a "classic Faustian bargain."

"We are being offered gratification in the short term - a one-year breakout period that may enable us to rest a little easier for the next 10 years. But after that, the short term benefit goes away, and Iran gets everything it has ever wanted."

Albright said the "inspection conditions are critical."

"We've got to have prompt access," Albright said, adding the US administration needed to push Iranian leaders to agree to inspections "anywhere."

Final Iran nuclear deal: tough issues still to crack
Vienna (AFP) April 22, 2015 - Negotiators working to a June 30 deadline were on Wednesday set to begin finalising a historic nuclear deal curtailing Iran's nuclear activities in exchange for lifting painful international sanctions.

If completed and implemented successfully, the accord would make any attempt by Iran to make a nuclear weapon -- which it denies wanting to do -- extremely difficult and easily detectable.

Despite Iran and six major powers having agreed on April 2 the main outlines of the accord in Lausanne, Switzerland, there are several potential problem areas to resolve in what will be a highly complex agreement:

- Sanctions -

The United States and European Union have committed to suspending economic sanctions they have imposed on Iran, although officials say that they will "snap back" into place if Iran violates the deal.

All past UN Security Council resolutions on the nuclear issue will be lifted and replaced by a new text endorsing the final deal and incorporating some UN sanctions such as those on conventional arms, missiles and asset freezes.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said a week after the Lausanne breakthrough that Iran would not sign a final agreement unless "all economic sanctions are totally lifted on the same day".

But Western officials say that they suspension will only happen once the UN atomic agency confirms Iran has taken the key nuclear-related steps under the deal. US Secretary of State John Kerry has said this would take six to 12 months.

- Numbers, timeframe -

According to a US fact sheet, Iran has committed to slashing the number of centrifuges enriching uranium -- which can render it suitable for power generation but also for a bomb -- to 5,060 from 19,000 at present, and for 10 years.

An additional 1,044 centrifuges will remain at the Fordo facility -- which is built into a mountain -- but for 15 years these will be used for purposes other than uranium enrichment, the US says.

The same document says that Iran will reduce its stockpile of low-enriched uranium -- enough for several bombs if further processed -- from 10,000 kilogrammes (22,000 pounds) to 300 kg, and not to expand it for 15 years.

Iran has however called the fact sheet a "mixture of facts and lies", and an April 2 joint statement by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini was much vaguer.

They said only that "Iran's enrichment capacity, enrichment level and stockpile will be limited for specified durations". This may mean that the exact scope of the downsizing and the timeframe are yet to be nailed down.

The statement did concur however that the Fordo site will no longer be used for enrichment and that a new reactor being built at Arak would be redesigned so that it does not produce weapons-grade plutonium.

- Inspections -

Iran and the six powers also need to work out the details of additional inspection work that the UN atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, would conduct under the final deal.

According to the US, this will include "new transparency and inspections mechanisms", greater access to uranium mines and monitoring a new procurement channel for Iran to acquire nuclear-related materials and technology.

Some of additional oversight measures would be covered by the additional protocol to Iran's existing inspections agreement with the IAEA, as well as the so-called modified code 3.1. The US says Iran will implement both of these.

More oversight is a particular thorny issue in view of allegations that the IAEA wants to investigate that before 2003, and possibly since, Iran conducted research into developing nuclear weapons -- claims that Iran denies.

Western officials stress that these claims of "possible military dimensions" need to be cleared up before sanctions can be lifted, but the IAEA's probe has been stalled since last August.

- Research and development -

A key area of concern is Iran's research into new types of nuclear equipment to replace the 1970s-vintage IR-1 centrifuge machines currently in use.

Critics, including US Republicans and Israel, fear that new machines could enable Iran to make material for a bomb much more quickly, particularly once restrictions on enrichment expire.

According to the US fact sheet, Iran will remove its 1,000 more advanced IR-2M centrifuges and place them under IAEA-monitored storage, while not using more advanced models to enrich uranium for at least 10 years.

Iran will however "engage in limited research and development with its advanced centrifuges, according to a scheduled and parameters which have been agreed to" by the six powers.

US State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said on April 3 that the two sides "still have some R&D issues to work out, and those are among the most challenging, to be frank."


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